The fake review problem is clearly bad, but if it's going to take some fancy machine learning algorithm to solve it, why not start with a simpler improvement to user reviews:
Weighting the Top Rated scores so it doesn't show an item with a single 5-star review above an item with 5000 reviews and a 4.9 star average.
Amazon's Fake Review Problem
251–260 of 336 posts
Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's brilliant. Here's Fakespot page for the headphones I wrote about: https://www.fakespot.com/product/bluedio-f2-faith-active-noi...
If Fakespot is able to spot the fake reviews, Amazon could have also utilized the similar tech. What stops them?
Money. They only care about short term sales. Amazon doesn't care about how much you trust amazon... for now. Once they've lost everyone's trust then they're start to care.
Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem
#253Amazon is starting to feel more and more like eBay. The same product sold by multiple vendors under different names, questionable reviews, clearly fraudulent sellers and so on. I used to love Amazon but now when I look for something I dread to do so on Amazon because I don't feel I can trust anything there.
I had this realization the other day. I was buying something that's currently out of stock most places. I looked on Amazon, saw some "3rd party" sellers that said they would have it on stock various dates about 1 week in the future, and I didn't believe them. Some sellers had hundreds of positive reviews, others had only a few, most were an "appropriate" price (not to high or low), and all of them had the prime desig…
> I looked on Amazon, saw some "3rd party" sellers that said they would have it on stock various dates about 1 week in the future, and I didn't believe them.
They're planning to drop ship it when you order it. Only then will they realize it's out of stock (or they'll wait weeks for it from China).
A number of times I've had a reseller dropship from walmart.com or target.com for a few dollars of arbitrage.
Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem
#254Amazon is starting to feel more and more like eBay. The same product sold by multiple vendors under different names, questionable reviews, clearly fraudulent sellers and so on. I used to love Amazon but now when I look for something I dread to do so on Amazon because I don't feel I can trust anything there.
Amazon is Walmart on the web.
That's what it used to be. Now it's ebay + walmart.
Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
If nothing else, they at least allow you to filter out non-amazon (or even non-prime fulfilled) items.
They do. - Search - Pick a category - Select "Amazon.com" as the seller
Sometimes. IME it seems kind of random as to when you can filter by seller and when you can't.
You can fairly consistently filter by Prime/non-Prime, but that's not the same (that filters down to things fulfilled by Amazon, but not just sold by Amazon).
Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Fakespot is able to spot the fake reviews, Amazon could have also utilized the similar tech. What stops them?
Money. They only care about short term sales. Amazon doesn't care about how much you trust amazon... for now. Once they've lost everyone's trust then they're start to care.
As far as I know (and in my experience so far, e.g. reflected in very lenient return policy) customer trust has been their highest priority from their beginnings, which is one of the main things that made them successful in the early web in the end.
They have been risking it by their issues with counterfeit products and fake reviews only in the most recent years, but I would be surprised if they had no engineers who are thinking about ways to solve these problems.
Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem
#257Amazon is starting to feel more and more like eBay. The same product sold by multiple vendors under different names, questionable reviews, clearly fraudulent sellers and so on. I used to love Amazon but now when I look for something I dread to do so on Amazon because I don't feel I can trust anything there.
Last year I bought an SD Card that turned out to be fake. There wasn't a straightforward return option for this item so I sent them an e-mail with a title "I this eBay? Because you go to eBay to buy fake SD Cards". Got a refund but I'm not going to buy anything from Amazon that is known to have this problem.
I just checked the item, still sold with solid 4.5 stars and occasional 1star reviews with pictures documenting that they also got a fake one.
Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's brilliant. Here's Fakespot page for the headphones I wrote about: https://www.fakespot.com/product/bluedio-f2-faith-active-noi...
If Fakespot is able to spot the fake reviews, Amazon could have also utilized the similar tech. What stops them?
Profit they make from extra sales due to fake reviews? Why do you assume fake reviews are bad for Amazon bottom line?
Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
If nothing else, they at least allow you to filter out non-amazon (or even non-prime fulfilled) items.
They do. - Search - Pick a category - Select "Amazon.com" as the seller
But they mix inventory in their warehouses, so they are just as likely to ship out an item sent to them for Fulfillment by Amazon by another merchant as the are to ship an item they actually procured. I think mixed inventory is the heart of their problem.
Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem
#260The fake review problem on Amazon is much bigger than people think. Here are my two anecdotes: 1. I got bluetooth headphones on amazon (~$65). They had great reviews, but were very disappointing. I returned them and gave 2 star review. Representative from the manufacturer contacted me and offered me a pair for free. After I got them, they asked for positive review. I refused. That manipulation technique wasn't enough…
> offered me a pair for free. After I got them , they asked for positive review. I refused. So they were "very disappointing", but not "very disappointing" enough to refuse a free pair, at their expense? > That manipulation technique Perhaps, since you were happy to accept the headphones , they believed your original negative review was not sincere, but itself a manipulation technique to get a freebie or special offe…
I do not consider buying positive reviews with free items an ethical marketing strategy: it deceives people expecting unaffiliated opinions there...
Why should anyone take part in this?
If a company decides to give away free items, and gets nothing in reply that's their problem... I am happy when people do not sell their kidney for pennies: and as a single costumer you usually don't have the power to fight back large corporations: then sometimes the most convenient reaction is to keep both the free gifts and your kidney ;) And if many people do this, it may eventually get them out from business, win-win
edit: Thinking over, I partly agree with the previous comment. If they expect you to update your review, honesty may be the most ethical, so e.g. one can start it with: "They have sent me a free item after I returned mine and gave them a 2 star review..." ;)